Eloise Mintumble
by J.B.Dennis
Summary: Unspeakable Eloise Mintumble travels back in time.


Eloise Mintumble

"Is everyone ready?" There was a murmur of consent from around the room. "Eloise, how about you?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

"Alright then everyone, on the count of three. One. Two. Three." There was a bright flash of white light. Eloise felt herself falling through the air, the world around her spin wildly in myriad of colors. The sound of shattering glass made her look at her watch, which was coming apart right in front of her eyes. The glass had cracked, the hands were whizzing about wildly, and the gears were spewing out in every direction. Just as Eloise was beginning to get dizzy, her feet found solid ground and the world stopped spin.

It was night and she was standing in a empty cobbled street. She looked around in an attempt to find out if the experiment had work but there was no indication one way or another. Without any other recourse, she moved down the street until she found that seemed to be an inn. Peeking through the window, she found that there were several people milling about its large front room by fire light, all of them dressed in very different clothing than Eloise; could barely contain her excitement. The experiment had work. She had traveled back in time, not just by months or years, but (judging by the clothes) by centuries.

Happily, Eloise pulled out her wand and waved it over her head. Nothing happen. Eloise tried her reversal spell again and again but to no avail. Panic was beginning to wash over her. She was stuck in the past. What was she to do? Whenever she was, she didn't want to live out the rest of her days here. Being a woman in the 19th century was bad enough. What would life be like for her in whatever century this was?

Eloise pushed her worries out of her mind with great difficultly. Panicking would not help the situation. And besides, her fellow Unspeakables would know that something had gone wrong if she didn't return right away. They would find a way to get her back to her proper time. Holding firmly on to this comforting thought, Eloise quickly transfigured her clothes into more time appropriate garments and then stepped into the inn.

Eloise had intend to keep a low profile until her colleague could manage to retrieve her but by her second day, her curiosity got the better of her. Looking out of the window in her room (which she had bewitched the innkeeper into give her) she couldn't help but wonder about the people in this century. No matter how much history one studied, it was still only second hand knowledge. Was she really going to waste an opportunity like this? After all, was the point of time travel to learn about the past? And so, for the next few days, she drifted through the small, questioning its people about their day to day lives and quickly wiping their memories when they started to get suspicious. After three days, she had a considerable amount of notes on the lives of Muggles during the year 1402.

As the evening of her fifth day rolled around, Eloise felt a tugging sensation. It wasn't very strong, almost as if a child was pulling at her robes. An instant later she left the sensation again, only this time it was stronger. Realizing that her fellow Unspeakables had finally managed to find a way to break through the divide between 1402 and 1899, Eloise quickly gathered up her notes; the tugging sensation growing stronger and stronger all the while. She had just managed to gather up the last of her work when she left the great tug of all.

In an instant the world around her dissolved into a whirling storm of color. Her feet had left the ground; it felt as if she was fall upwards. She could hear voices, growing louder and louder as she continued to topple through the eddies of time. The sensation only last a few disorientating seconds before her feet found solid ground again.

"Eloise good to have you back," said a voice. Eloise opened her mouth to respond but, before she could utter a single word, a stabbing pain shot through her body. Looking down, she watching in horror as her skin wrinkled right before her very eyes. Her papers dropped from her newly gnarled and withered hands, dissolving into dust before they even reach the floor. Eloise dropped to her knees, which had become so brittle that they instantly shattered. She caught one final look at her colleagues, who where all milling about her frantically, before the world when dark.


End file.
